Robotized and Automated Warehouse Systems: Review and Recent Developments

Kaveh Azadeh (), René De Koster () and Debjit Roy ()
Additional contact information
Kaveh Azadeh: Rotterdam School of Management, Erasmus University, 3062 PA Rotterdam, Netherlands
René De Koster: Rotterdam School of Management, Erasmus University, 3062 PA Rotterdam, Netherlands
Debjit Roy: Rotterdam School of Management, Erasmus University, 3062 PA Rotterdam, Netherlands; Indian Institute of Management Ahmedabad, Gujarat 380015, India

Transportation Science, 2019, vol. 53, issue 4, 917–945

Abstract: Robotic handling systems are increasingly applied in distribution centers. They require little space, provide flexibility in managing varying demand requirements, and are able to work 24/7. This makes them particularly fit for e-commerce operations. This paper reviews new categories of automated and robotic handling systems, such as shuttle-based storage and retrieval systems, shuttle-based compact storage systems, and robotic mobile fulfillment systems. For each system, we categorize the literature in three groups: system analysis, design optimization, and operations planning and control. Our focus is to identify the research issue and operations research modeling methodology adopted to analyze the problem. We find that many new robotic systems and applications have hardly been studied in academic literature, despite their increasing use in practice. Because of unique system features (such as autonomous control, flexible layout, networked and dynamic operation), new models and methods are needed to address the design and operational control challenges for such systems, in particular, for the integration of subsystems. Integrated robotic warehouse systems will form the next category of warehouses. All vital warehouse design, planning, and control logic, such as methods to design layout, storage and order-picking system selection, storage slotting, order batching, picker routing, and picker to order assignment, will have to be revisited for new robotized warehouses.

Keywords: warehousing; robotic systems; planning and control (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2019
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (63)

Downloads: (external link)
https://doi.org/10.1287/trsc.2018.0873 (application/pdf)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:inm:ortrsc:v:53:y:2019:i:4:p:917-945

Access Statistics for this article

More articles in Transportation Science from INFORMS Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Chris Asher ().